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tv   Mad Money  CNBC  December 13, 2012 6:00pm-7:00pm EST

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has done extraordinarily well. bkw. >> they have salads by the way. >> sure. >> rimm. it's coming back. look for a big spike. >> grasso? >> you heard the guest talk about it, you heard me talk about. yahoo!. >> thank you so much for watching. see you tomorrow at 9:00 we'll have an exclusive with the ceo of bank of america. don't go anywhere. "mad money" with jim i'm jim cramer, welcome to my world. you need to get in the game. stearns is going to go out of business, and he's nuts, they're nuts, they know nothing. i always like to say there is a bull market somewhere. "mad money," you can't afford to miss it. hey, i'm cramer. welcome to "mad money," welcome
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to kram measure ker ka. call me, 1-800-743-cnbc. so that's what it will look like if we fall off the fiscal cliff. i'm talking about how the stock market acted today, particularly near the end of the day before the closing rally, dow diving 75 points. s & p seeking .63%. nasdaq, punching .72%. because now it's dawning on stock holders they are facing something like the debt ceiling debacle. if the armed camps in washington don't disarm, and agree to talk to each other in a serious way, and not just the bluster sessions that seem to be happening daily these days, which reminds me, do you remember -- do you remember the debt ceiling nightmare last year? going to those horrendous talks last summer, everybody felt very confident that the president and congress weren't really at lagger heads. market was almost at its high.
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pretty good, vix low. then like now, we heard that the discord was only political posturi posturing. the stock market forwarded ahead, and the complacency was thick and more people worried about moissing a move up rather than talks break down and we might actually default. every time we heard meetings between the president and the speaker tonight, we figured we would hear mission accomplished the very next day. but we didn't. things got ran cower ocourous. we got a deal, but only after, not before, after we had the hideous sell-off. makes sense. remember how unruly congress was in 2008 when the previous
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president needed to pass t.a.r.p.? we got a quick 9% decline and then congress acted. maybe these guys don't like to do the right thing until they see the whites of the bear market's eyes. why is it suddenly dawning on people that the cliff isn't looming but we're about to go over the edge of the abyss. the whole chatter between 12:00 and 3:00 today. i'll tell you why. in the last few days, people in the business community, ceos, many voted for romney. had made pilgrimages to romney, saying, okay, president, listen. while we'd prefer not to have taxes raised, we recognize higher income taxes are the price we have to pay to get a deal. the very constituency supposed to abhor higher taxes for the 2%, namely, the 2% itself is willing to take a hit to get a deal done that would be good for profits and hiring and american
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ascendency, on the brink of if we get a deal. what business leaders are discovering is what they are telling me is that they their acceptance and support of the tax increases meant nothing to the president. obama was going to demand the tax increases with or without the approval of ceos, many of whom didn't vote for him anyway. business leaders have something really wrong. under a false impression, the impression that president understood their support for tax increases and they would pressure their own republican buddies in congress and accept tax hikes, the ceo figures that they would offer spending cuts and go with the president and the grand bargain would be struck. now the ceos realize that perhaps the president doesn't think he should offer any spending cuts at all, maybe nothing substantive. they are saying, hey, listen, no compromise coming, even if they conceded they had to pay higher taxes, the gop isn't helping either. they don't want to get specific
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about own spending cuts and see a realistic proposal from the white house and pin the tail on the white house from being too tough on medicare. somebody needs to be the bigger man here, and it's increasingly clear that the business community thinks that somebody may not be the president. that's the information filtering back to me. a little chatter that the president is no longer even negotiating and the republicans who are saying the president is taking a my way or the highway approach may not be posturing. that may very well be the president's view according to the ceos. i expect to hear speaker boehner on tv tomorrow reiterate that the president is going with the my way or the highway, no real spending cuts approach. no mandate for that except it really isn't a my way or the highway, my way or the cliff's way. i've been pondering this, a little hollywood style. maybe it's a rebel without a cause moment. an actual loser in a game of chicken. the ceo realizes that the
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president, james dean, they are the other guy, the loser in the game of chicken, with their coats caught on the car door handle, trapped, and barrelling right over the cliff to a fiery death. good scene, good movie. bad ending. so what happens in the scenario when we go over the cliff? i loved today's glimpse before the short covering rally when we learned of the new meeting, first gold gets hammered, washington said inflation is really anti inflationary and the posturing won't change that. i want you out of the gold stocks and into precious metal. gld, etf, sell stocks now, buy later. and deals looking bad for oil and gas companies, because demand for energy will decline, particularly demand for hedge funds. you like to play against a hedge. i like oil, remind you it's an international market kind of driven by the chinese, not us, if eog resources goes down, consider that company as a place to put your money.
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remember, mark pappas yesterday. and people want to sell the drug stocks on decline. here i'm not sure. sellers are worried that the government may be negotiating with the drug companies. you know what? probably really going on. i think that drug stocks have big dividends and after tax return on dividends will come down sharply after we go off the cliff. that was part of the deal of the cliff. what's not getting hit as hard as you would expect? how about companies that have marginal exposure to united states but much morale involved with china? you could see joy global keep its gains. that company's mining equipment is more dependent on china than a possibility slowing of the united states. we're cutting back on coal anyway. what's the most worry some thing on the whole decline? that this is really day one in recognition that the ceos were had here, the foils to james
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dean rebel without a cause triumph, and they are recognizing there is a cause. soak the rich with higher tax rates and cut nothing. cut nothing back, because the mandate, well, that was what the president thought he was elected on. to appropriate a little shakespeare, what fools these ceos be. the president, here is the way i summarized what they are thinking. president's rising above all right. rising above the cliff. they will fall off in the vicious game of chicken. bottom line, we have to hope history isn't repeating itself, that the market is beginning go down the path of the preceiling debacle, before we get crushed and get the deal. but if you remember the business community who thought compromise was in the air, the only thing that turned out to be in the air was you, in your car, going over the cliff, without wings. without parachutes and a full tank of soon to explode octane. let's go to nate in kansas, please. >> caller: booyah, jim. nate in wichita.
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thank you for taking my call. >> all right. >> caller: my call is for clear wire. i bought in late october, and i'm in at $1.91 a share. about 15,000 shares, buy, sell, or hold? any suitors coming in? >> here is what we want to do. we have to ring the register moment. my friend david faber told people don't pay up, some guy saying it would be 5 bucks. why don't you take some off the table. you've got a double. follow cramer's rule, sell half tomorrow, maybe let the rest run. and anyway, i want it repeated in washington. sadly, that seems to be where we're headed, rebel without a cause. i don't want a repeat of the debt ceiling t.a.r.p. debacle. but today felt sort of like we had one.
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fiscal fear. a critical time for the ticker as wall street hangs on every word out of washington. >> at some point reality sets in. >> cramer takes on the technicals to see if the market could be telegraphing its next move, when he goes off the charts. and, later, last-minute shopping? after almost doubling this year, shares of the gap have gap down, could this mega name clothing retailer be gift wrapped just for you? or will cliff worries about locking in gains for the year soon make it come apart at the seams? cramer trying it on, just ahead. plus, engine of growth. the power outages that follow superstorm sandy gave many homeowners a wakeup call, as the rebuild continues, could ab investment in engine company brigs and stratton plug you into a strong trend? cramer speaks to the ceo coming
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up. don't miss a second of "mad money" follow @jimcramer on twitter. tweet cramer at #madtweets. send an e-mail to cramer at cnbc.com. or call 1-800-743-cnbc. miss something? head to madmoney.cnbc.com. can i help you? i heard you guys can ship ground for less than the ups store. that's right. i've learned the only way to get a holiday deal is to camp out. you know we've been open all night. is this a trick to get my spot? [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. save on ground shipping at fedex office. [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. i have obligations. cute tobligations, but obligations.g.
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all for one flat fee of $4.95 per month. get rid of prepaid problems. get chase liquid. after sick straigx straight where the s & p 500 went higher, the index' winning streak has finally been broken. even in the wake of today's decline, we're still in a very weird market. with all of the constant fretting about the fiscal cliff and the damage it could do to the economy, we would be getting hammered all of the time. but at least if the averages were flat lining, yet, that's not -- that has not been the case for over the last four weeks. instead, the s & p 500 and the dow, nasdaq, generally moving higher and higher in true cramer fave jackie wilson style.
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the movie has been punctuated with nasty days like today, and the recent strength is a true conundrum and view the sell-off as the world returning to normalcy, tonight, we're going off the charts to figure out what's going on here and see what it would take for the s & p to reverse today's losses and power higher and doing it with the help of carolyn barodin who is my colleague at the street.com and she's been dead right about this stuff, which is why we're going back to this well. you know i'm not a chartist, at least at heart. i'm a fundamentalist, the best way to define where ab individual stock or the entire market is headed is to look at facts of actual companies. create a world view. ultimate ultimately, i think the market is in washington's hands at the moment. while i wait for a fiscal cliff resolution, the charts can be most helpful. we keep coming back to barodin,
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her work is most eerily prescient. she called the tof tp of the in within ten points of where it peaked. right here in september. and went cautious, all of these followed on our show. told us she was drawing a line in the sand and said if it dropped below 1396, we were going to get hammered. i regard that as a hammering. sure enough in early november, right after the election, we did indeed get pummeled, the really nasty streak. she called that. the last time we checked in with her was november 20th when the s & p started rallying after the monster move. the monster decline, and then here, trying to figure out if this was real? we went to her. her work said that the tin decks likely bottomed and a term was at hand. look at the chart. we've been going up ever since. nice call. so she nails it here, she nails it here and she nails it here,
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okay. so that's not bad. now, look. i'm not saying she's some kind of oracle, technical analysis works right up until it doesn't. i would be wary to putting too much stock into any one's interpretation of the charts. during a very difficult period of the mark it would behoove us to find out what she could think could happen next. i would say she has the hot hand. let's go with the hot hand and right now she thinks the s & p's next move is all about hurdles, not olympic hurdles, stock chart hurdles. okay. last time we spoke to brodin, she said it could move highfer it could break out over crucial resistance. there was a ceiling of resistance at 1388. and s & p summered the ceiling of resistance. right through it. and the recent rally in the s &
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p will continue, it needs to jump the next hurdle which is a thick ceiling, bounded by 1446, 1436. that's a ceiling. composite ceiling that's steel reinforced. t yesterday, it failed to jump the hurdle and the entire market got slammed back down. hit the roof, went back. what makes this so important? brodin is looks at leonardo fibonaci. he discovered ratios that repeated in nature. according to many technicians, like broadin, these ratios repeat themselves in the charts, as crucial turning points in the pricing action for all kinds of securities. look at a previous swing in the stock or index and apply the
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ratios, and the result is an important level for the security. brodin likes to look for clusters of fibonaci relations, and we have a group of three, 1346 to 144 6, which is why this is so important. a retracement of a previous swing, 100% price projection of another swing, and if it would be semet ral to a previous move, and brodin's way of thinking, these three levels clustered together create a strong ceiling of resistance, and the s p & p has to jump the hurdle. now, we failed to jump the hurdle yesterday. and yesterday was significant, and negative. so brodin expected to see the kind of pullback we got today before we tried to test the resistance level again. fortunately, s & p has support created by another cluster, and this floor is at 1414. okay. just a couple points below where
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the s & pent went out today. as long as we say above, the path of least resistance is higher and today, even if the ugliness, the floor held. what does that tell you? again, this is the other part of the problem with technicians. if the floor fails, then brodin draws a new line in the sand, based on the low of the s & p made on december 5th. if we go below that, we could be headed into a real howl some pain. if the s & p can stay above that level, brodin believes it's smooth sailing. based on fibonacci, it could rally to 1510. more than 6% than it is right now. i want to make that. and looking at the next dhacharf the s & p, the s & p might go as high as 1555.
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wow. or even 1607. again, using her work to get there. that would be the kind of market. and 1607. and the trouble comes back to the s & p, to 1336 to 1446. and brodin's going higher, and we could see terrific rallies in the dow industrials and nasdaq. she is approaching 13985. caught your attention and she says the nd x running up to 2982, a 12.7% increase where it is right now. could that be apple getting back to where it was? the bottom line, charts aren't more powerful than the fiscal cliff, while we wait for washington to finish its game of deal or no deal, this market has hurdle jumping to do. if the s & p can break out above 1446, the pullback can be overcome and the entire market could levitate. that's what we need to see to
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get charts on our side, or brodin's version of them. i'm with her. cautious, wary, but opportunistic, all the same. after the break, i'll try to make you more money. >> coming up, last minute shopping? after almost doubling this year, shares of the gap have gapped down. for this mega name clothing retailer, now be gift wrapped just for you, or will cliff worries about locking in gains for the year soon make it come apart at the seams? cramer trying it on, just ahead. and, later, engine of growth? the power outages that followed superstorm sandy gave many homeowners a wakeup call. as the rebuild continues, could an investment in engine company briggs & stratton plug you into a strong trend? cramer is speaking to the ceo to find out. all coming up on "mad money."
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as we approach the end of the year, it sure doesn't seem like retail is having a holly jolly christmas, we got worries on the low end, with concerns about march begins at dollar general, and negative commentary from the ceo of walmart. we have worries on the high end as a couple of days ago, the ceo of saks noted he has to be more conservative on his outlook, given the ridiculous level of
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uncertainty on washington's failure to avert the fiscal cliff. with retailers, you want to own a turn around story. a real turn can give a stock a reason to transcend the worries of the fiscal cliff. take the trend at urban outfitters, an underappreciated comeback play, highlighted on november 20th. urban came out with a 10q, and same-store sales for the fourth quarter were strong, up by high single digits. spiked prosecute 37 to 40. sandy, fiscal cliff, still humming, but we have more confirmation that it's for real and urban is getting its deal. it's also anthropologie, which does a lot of house wares. i want to focus on one that's definitely not getting the credit it deserves right now. near-term jitters, i'm talking about the amazing turn around in
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gap i know, no accounting for taste. the stock has sold off recently and viciously. $35 to the end of november, to $31 and change right now. and the pullback, a pause that refreshes. a great opportunity to buy the gap on weakness. you haven't had many chances to do that of late. this has been incredible. even with the recent decline, gap is still rallied, an astounding 70% year-to-date. those mammoth gains tell me that that has been fiscal cliff related as people go to their tax adviser and realize -- you know what? or get the register ringing. part of the selling in gap is a lot of people taking profits at the same time. something that will end when capital gains rates go up in a couple of weeks. and i was formulating in my own head, that once we get the
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higher tax rates, you don't want to sell anything, and then you have to pay the taxman more. psychologically, you might be inclined to hold on. back on november 29th, the company came out with monthly same-store sales and considered disappointing. it was looking for a 3.8% rise and there was only an increase of 3%. and negative comments about increased promotional activity at old navy, and these two things got the sell-off ball rolling. to me, the idea of dumping gap because november was a bit worse than expected is insane. first of all, this november was a real a abhor ant month. you had unseasonably warm weather on the west coast, sandy on the east coast, and these numbers are notoriously choppy. don't give you a good reed and so many have stopped leasing monthly figures and also there was just an annoyity for hedge
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funds, and historically, november same store sales numbers, not a good predictor of what happens in december. what we care about now. as for the worries about promotional activity, goldman sachs did channel checks, found no unusual promotional activity. the company still looks spot on, ta-dah, so if the reasons for the sell-off are overblown, what should we care about when it comes to gap? i have to come back to the strength of the turn around and how this is still in its early stages, gap spent a decade in the wilderness, but last year under leadership of glen murphy, manna from heaven, the company got its act together. one of the few retailers with multiple successful contacts. not like limited and urban limited being strong too. we have gap, banana republic and old navy. and these brands are being managed well with a focus on stocking stores with merchandise people actually like.
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i think the stock could have a big multiyear run ahead of it. mickey set it up, then some other guys took over, kind of ran it into the ground. murphy is bringing it back. i am not the only person who has noticed the changes. a terrific article in the company about the latest edition of adage, like the "wall street journal" of marketing. the title says it all "mind the gap retailer's fashion's brands resurgence. social savvy ads and a bit of good timing help retailer come back into style. i like the trades for ideas. that was a good one. beyond more appealing merchandise, gap is doing a number of things to grow the business. the company closing stores in the united states, it's opening new outlets and value centers, especially popular, given the consumer is more value conscious than she used to be. have you seen the price of jeans in the outlet stores? when i went shopping at my favorite outlet store, i thought
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there had to be something wrong the prices were so low, i was looking for flies that didn't zip, holes in the crotch. nothing. and the plan is to get the numbers up to 35 over the top. they didn't get in at the top. opened 30 new stores in china. and there is a universality. and the results were pretty darn good. the company delivering 6% increase in same-store sales. driven by strength. and i think the strength is going to continue. in fact, i bet things get better in the first half of the year. why? how about the raw cost issue. high cost cotton, a big headwind for gap. the price of cotton declined dramatically and the company will lap double digit cotton prices. and cotton is a huge cost for gap. more so than any -- more so than
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almost raflt tailers. the savings from lower cotton prices took a tail wind for the company what we discovered with dollar general if gloss margins are expanding, people like you, even if margins aren't as strong as we were true. gap sells 9% long term growth rate. buy the stock here and buy more if it goes lower as we approach the ugh-ugh. that's the new thing for fiscal cliff. two lines. anyway, gap is not getting credit it deserves, the recent pullback is a terrific buying opportunity, one you don't want to miss, at least to get started to building a position, pending congress and the president, issuing their sell, sell, sell, with each day that the budget talks falter, even the new ones. you know what? let's go to mike in wisconsin, please. >> caller: booyah, mr. cramer, big fan of the show. never miss it.
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>> that's fantastic. appreciate the kind words. what's going on? >> caller: my question, jcpenney, up about 15% this week. has the stock maybe turned around? more room to run, or is this maybe a bunch of short comings? >> well, i think the bottom. talking about this with stephanie link, the codirector of action alerts plus.com. my charitable trust. we think ever since manny charico, the fabulous ceo of pvh talked about stores within a store at jcpenney doing well, i think it was the bottom and the stock going up ever since. i don't like jcpenney, but too late to hate. too late to hate. like no vacation without legislation, like ogden nash. let's go to jim in new york. going to myself. >> caller: a wonder bread
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hostess twinkies booyah! what do you think will happen with hostess? will it go private or flowers food would be a good fit? >> i don't think flo will buy them. you get a lot of labor issues and flowers down there in thomasville, georgia, he they don't really get into the labor issues. this outfit is more a fashion statement. when you see me around town, you know this is how i look. i think the turn around story at gap is alive and well. consider its pullback a chance not to pull on a full position. want 100 shares? buy 50 and wait for the latest disappointment from washington. stick around. lightning round is next. all energy development comes with some risk,
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it is time. time for the lightning round. and we'll take calls, and buy, buy, buy, sell, sell, sell. my staff will play this sound and the lightning round is over. are you ready, skedaddy? let's start with marshall in
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massachusetts. marshall. >> caller: hey, jim. i know you like cloud companies. i was taking a look at enc. trading about two times book value as a forward fee, and very low debt. what do you think? >> emc, one of my largest positions of my charitable trust. it has been a winner, stephanie link, you see her on at fast money. it's an inexpensive tech stock. it should be buy, buy. buy. let's go to mike in maryland. >> caller: a retired military booyah for you. wta mortgage, buy, sell, or hold? have to be careful here. what ben bernanke is doing with the bond market makes it too darn hard for me to figure out what to do with mortgage rates.
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i have to take a break here. let's go to frederick in washington, please. >> caller: hi, jim, how you doing, bag booyah from bellevue, washington. go hawks. let's go microsoft. >> okay. microsoft does not yield enough yet to intrigue me. i do believe it will be a better stock in 2013 at some point. i have to believe some of that cycle for windows 8 kicks in. right now in no man's land. i don't like being in no-man's land. rick in missouri now. >> caller: jim, thank you for taking my call. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> caller: my question today, i want to know if arch coal will remain a big lump of coal for 20 3. i bought it at 14. down to about 7. would like your insight. >> remember, on "ed ""mad mone don't care where a stock has been, we care where it's been. i like arch coal. stewart in california,
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please. >> caller: jim, a big booyah for myself and my parents. i'm wondering how you think bank of america will do with the whole fiscal cliff situation? >> people tell me that the housing business is the one that will be hurt most by fiscal cliff, but bank of america is inexpensive stock. not my favorite, but banks trading together and bank of america will do well if we solve the fiscal cliff. that is the conclusion of the lightning round. >> the lightning round is sponsored by td ameritrade. coming up, engine of growth? the power outages that followed superstorm sandy gave many homeowners a wakeup call. as the rebuild continues, could an investment in engine company briggs & stratton help plug you into a strong trend? cramer is speaking to the ceo to find out. but whether he's climbing everest, scuba diving the great barrier reef with sharks, or jumping into the market, he goes with people he trusts,
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i want to pull back to a company that i recommended three weeks ago. i'm talking about briggs & stratton. a small company, a market cap of little less than a billion dollars, but it's the world's largest maker of gas engines. they make it for lawn and garden equipment. pressure washers, snow throwers and it sells much better in markets where housing is improving. and they have a sandy kicker. it is the number one manufacturer of portable generat generators, and they only account for 10% of company sales, but they have an easy to operate product, and when millions lost power for days or weeks after hurricane sandy, you better believe just about everybody stuck in that situation want wished they had a generator. i think these people will not allow themselves to be caught without power again which is why i bet portable generators will
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be a staple of hurricane preparedness, like candles and flashlights and batteries. very good news for briggs & stratton. let's get a closer look with todd teske, the president and ceo of briggs & stratton. find out more about his company and where it's headed. welcome to "mad money". >> great to be here, jim. thanks. >> we can't have any illusions. hurricane sandy, generators are important, you are primarily lawn and garden. we have a great housing market, interrupted by periods of drought and bad weather. where we are in not just the last season, but a multiyear move. >> you look at lawn and garden, a couple of things relate. housing is one of them and replacement cycle is another. we look at the recovery in the housing market, we are cautiously optimistic for the upcoming season and you point out, multiple years out. a year ago, we thought we were seeing the improvement in
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housing early on, because last year in march was -- it was a great, great period of time, because it was obviously warm and the grass was growing, mowers selling great, and then the drought hit. we look at the upcoming season, we see it as being really good and beyond that as long as nothing interrupts the housing recovery. on the replacement cycle, typically, jim, replacement cycle is generally seven to nine years, and if you go back to the 2003-2005 time frame, those were the peaks of the market, and the market has been off since '05, and we think the replacement cycle should be kicking in soon as well. we're cautiously optimistic for the upcoming season and very optimistic going forward. >> something technologically seems to matter. a phase three emissions standard that might exclude some of what i think are unfair chinese imports. will this cut in your direction too? >> when you look at phase three epa, the rules became effective
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last january and really we didn't see it take full effect for the last season, and so going forward into the upcoming season, we think that the competitive playing field will shift in our favor because we found ways to cost effectively meet the regulations where we think some of the offshore competition is going to be a little higher cost than we are with regard to addressing those emissions regulations. jim, i think the playing field is important for the playing field obviously to be level and we think that from a cost perspective, we're in little better shape perhaps than in the past as it relates to admissions regulations. >> and you have taken out costs internally and at the same time boosted the r & d. you could see the blossoming of gross margins from new products to lower products beginning say a year from now? >> you look at -- we have taken restructuring actions over the last two years or so and those actions were intended to really
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get us -- our resources in line with our strategy. our strategy, three pillars. make sure the engine business does well, get into higher end oduc geographic diversification with emerging markets. you look at what we've done, and the second pillar, with regard to higher margin products. a lot of invasion going into the category. a lot of r & d work going in. and the r & d pipe loline is mo robust than any time in the 16 1/2 years i have been with the company. >> let's talk about europe. emerging markets, but have you a big exposure to europe. stock markets going up, but no economic activity to speak of. is that where the economic activity not picking up yet for you guys either? >> yeah, when you look at last season, the last lawn and garden season, it was down somewhere in the neighborhood of 15%, the market overall, and that was really reflective, obviously of decreased consumer spending and people feeling a lot of the
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impacts of macro economic conditions in europe. as we look forward, into europe, into this next season, we're calling it flat, simply because there are is so much uncertainty going on over there with how they solve economic problems. at the same time, geographic diversification is really important for us, especially in emerging markets. last week, friday, we closed on a deal down in brazil, one of the key markets we look at from an emerging market standpoint, a company by the name of bronco, which does a lot of high-end equipment, commercial type equipment for the brazilian market and we think that will be a really strong market for us and a good acquisition for us long term as we look for the geographic diversification. >> small town may have left. i cannot resist telling you i love my briggs & stratton engine and it seems like there have to be other people, post sandy, that make that business so maybe it could be larger than 10% of your company at some point in the next year? >> i would tell you what we
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often see whenever there is wide scale power outages like we've seen with sandy and other storms in the past. portable generate ores go first, because people have an immediate need. the longer term play is the stand by generators and we do stand by generators, not only under the briggs brand, but ge brand as well. i would tell you, the power grid isn't getting any better, and as we move forward, we're putting a lot of r & d into stand by generators and we think that will be a significant category going forward. >> you have a pretty good little company. i know it doesn't seem little for you, and the companies we follow, it is in general. and really good move in the stack market, and i don't think it's done. todd teske, thank you. ceo of briggs & stratton. >> thanks, jim. >> they have a lot of good things in the pipe. next season, unless you think there is a drought as bad as this yeesh, to me, this one seems like it's ripe, particularly with the down grid
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we must not squander this once in a lifetime opportunity for north america to achieve energy independence. frankly, i am afraid we are going to. i talked to the phenomenal ceo, and we talked producing as much
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as 1960s. american technology and know how have created ways to get that oil that is thousands of feet below the surface of the earth. oil we nerve drever dreamed we access. we need to break the back of on pe opec. we need to provide it for energy security. many nations we buy oil from are anna l anathetical to the american way of democracy. we are fighting our enemies and it could end in the foreseeable future. but there is a second component that should have you steamed it had me steamed almost as much as my outrage at the fiscal cliff discussion in washington. i had to use the term fiscal cliff. hadn't used it yet in this piece. i'm talking about the skaunterred opportunity in natural gas. he was quite bullish in the price of oil.
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chinese keep it up. we have an umbrella that makes it worth our while to get hard to get oil. as plentiful as oil is, there is a gigantic glut for natural gas, and the opposite of oil, all papas talked. more nat gas than we know what to do with. we have no place to put it and not enough places to use it. and natural gas isn't fungible. it costs fortunes to transport overseas and barely economical when transported overseas. the best use is in this country. and we need to harness natural gas to make product more cheat here than anywhere else in the developed world that would be terrific if companieies would choose to relocate here. that's not happening. papa made it clear, he's bearish on the price of natural gas.
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it will stay at $5 for years to come. we have the opportunity to produce more than any other country on earth. the natural gas' replacement for diesel fuel. 25% of the oil we come from goes to diesel guzzling trucks, no infrastructure for those trucks to go nat gas, they aren't yet that efficient. we don't have a mandate to embrace the fuel. we don't even need federal subsidies, we need the federal government to say it will switch it's fleet of trucks, including military vehicles to natural gas by 2016 to have cleaner skies, more jobs, investment security to allow making real cuts to the defense budget. and that would encourage gas station owners and nat gas owners to work together to promote rapid acceptance of the
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fuel that could make our nation energy independent and create an industrial ren nance of the likes we haven't seen in decades. it can happen, it's not, though. the opportunity is being squandered and in no time, creative companies will find ways to export natural gas. and there is still time for our government to recognize the nat gas glut and take advantage. it won't last forever. stick with cramer. twins. i didn't see them coming. i have obligations. cute obligations, but obligations. i need to rethink the core of my portfolio. what i really need is sleep. introducing the ishares core, building blocks for the heart of your portfolio. find out why 9 out of 10 large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. ishares by blackrock. call 1-800-ishares for a prospectus which includes
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